Wilton won the award for his research looking at the problem of dingo hybridisation around Australia.

"It's a huge problem," Wilton told ABC Science Online.

Wilton tested the DNA of dingoes from along the east coast of Australia as well as on Fraser Island off the southeast coast of Queensland. He found that Fraser Island has the last remaining population of purebred dingoes.

On the mainland 80% to 100% of dingo populations were crossbred with domestic dogs, Wilton said.

"It's difficult to find any population of purebred animals."

Wilton said it was possible that there were a greater percentage of purebred dingoes in remote areas such as Arnhem Land in the northeast of the Northern Territory or the Kimberley region in the north of Western Australia. But he said it was inevitable that these populations would also become more hybridised, because they would breed with domestic dogs kept by Aboriginal communities and on farms.

"It's disappointing, but it's inevitable," he said.

The dingo is a native dog that scientists believe was brought to Australia by indigenous Australians. Because there is very little genetic variation among dingoes, the population is thought to have started with a single pregnant female, or a small pack of dingoes already closely related.

The fact that dingoes are genetically similar helped Wilton find the DNA markers that distinguish dingoes from dogs.

He said the Fraser Island dingoes had some unique "genetic types" that were not seen among mainland dingoes, suggesting that the population had been isolated for some time.

But he did not know when the dingoes were first taken across to the island.

Wilton said the Fraser Island dingoes are at risk because they are not protected. He said his research emphasised the usefulness of preserving the Fraser Island population. Currently dingoes seen hanging around tourist-populated areas in Fraser Island, such as campsites, are removed because of concerns for human safety.

"If they stayed in the wild they'd be OK," he said.

But currently the fate of the Fraser Island population is "in limbo", he said.

A dingo with its pup (Image: Ben Patrick)

"Some [people] suggest they should be removed," said Wilton. "Some suggest the tourists should be removed and leave the island to the dingoes."

He said one of the problems is that Australian laws against wild dogs did not distinguish between dingoes and domestic dogs gone wild. In Queensland, where owning dingoes is illegal, a lot of people had taken their pet dingoes to other states to prevent them from being destroyed.

Wilton said that human intervention had also changed the pack structure of the dingoes on the mainland. Traditionally a single dominant alpha female led dingo packs. But on the mainland baiting and shooting had destroyed pack structure.

Because of this the dingoes have "to mate where they can", and are more likely to mate with domestic dogs, Wilton said.